Under the Warmth of the Fallen Snow
by PlanetsBendBetweenUs
Summary: Dorothy shares her favorite song with Lucas


"What are you doing?"

Dorothy looked up from the ground she'd been staring at so intently – processing. She'd used magic. She'd made it snow. Some kind of weird snow that was somehow warm and unaffected by the heat of the night. She'd used magic. Had she? She couldn't be sure. It had been more like… feeling. Letting her feelings – the grief the pain the anger – take over her body, manifest itself into something physical, something she could control. But then, there had also been the warmth, the kindness the intimacy that flowed through her without her control. Like a presence. One she knew she could name. One she wouldn't name. One that was standing in front of her now.

"What is that thing?"

She turned the iPod between her fingers, pulled an earbud out. She'd woken up before the dawn, unable to quiet her mind. Music had always helped. But now it was only triggering more confusing feelings rather than distracting her from them.

He sighed, hands on hips. "Are we still fighting?"

She wanted to laugh. She didn't even know anymore. She had been furious with him earlier, then heartbroken when he'd wanted to leave, relieved when he'd stayed. She searched for the anger now. She couldn't find any. He looked so unsure, hesitant to speak when they had once both been so easily open with one another. She shook her head.

"Sit down. I'll show you." The log creaked under his weight. She felt the heat of his arm against hers and of his knee pressed against her thigh, barely muted by the material. "It's called an iPod. It's… kind of like a music box?" He frowned, confused. "Somebody… captured the music and trapped it inside."

"And you listen to it?"

"Yeah."

"What are you listening to?"

She fiddled with the device. "It's my favorite song. It's pretty popular in my world but I guess you wouldn't know it here."

A smile. "I wouldn't know a great many songs. Here or otherwise."

A laugh. Hers this time.

"Show me."

"No."

"Why not?"

" _Because._ Your favorite song… its personal. Someone's music says a lot about them and sharing it with someone else – it's…. intimate."

A pause. "You're the only person I know in the whole world. You're the only person I trust. You _are_ my whole world – well, you and the dog." He smiled when she laughed. "What could be more intimate than that?"

She bit her lip. A long pause as she considered him, considered giving him another piece of herself. "Okay." His smile made it worth giving. She held up the fallen ear bud. "Can I…?"

He nodded.

They sat in silence. Only the song passing through them. He listened with his eyes closed and she watched him listen. The steady breath in the rise and fall of his shoulders and chest, the snowflakes catching in his eyelashes, his brow pulling together as he concentrated, the smile that pulled the corner of his mouth at certain parts of the song. The shape of his mouth. The line of his jaw. The strength of his neck.

The song ended.

His eyes met her, catching her watching. Silence. A cough.

"Well?"

"It sounds like you."

She laughed. "And what does that sound like?"

"It's beautiful."

She grinned, rolled her eyes. "Okay, Romeo, how –"

"Let me finish." His hand came down over hers, trapping the iPod between their palms. She waited. "It's beautiful. But it also feels strong and vulnerable at the same time. It's passionate, and honest, and reckless, and determined. It sounds like hope." She didn't answer right away, she'd become fixed on the way he was looking at her and the pattern his fingers were tracing on her wrist.

"I don't _feel_ like all of those things."

"You are."

"I don't know who I am anymore. I thought I did but since I've come here... I've never felt so lost in my life." She looked down at their hands, unable to handle the intensity of him anymore.

"Well, luckily, you're not alone in that. And we've got each other to help one another figure it out, yeah?" A watery smile. "Don't worry about it. Everything is going to be okay," A laugh, tears wiped away quickly. A nod.

"Yeah."

"So what about me?"

"What do you mean?"

"You got a song. Is there one in there that sounds like me?" His smile was light, teasing and brought hers out as well.

She seriously debated putting on 'Eye of the Tiger' to mess with him but figured the joke would go over his head. Then she saw it. She looked at him hesitantly, unsure. His nod was encouraging. She hit play.

The silence filled the space around them again as the two fell into the song. Its melancholy, its darkness, its pain, but also its glimpse of hope, of sacrifice, of devotion and protection.

When it ended there were tears in his eyes. He wiped them before they could fall. Her heart broke.

"Lucas – I'm sorry I shouldn't –"

"No. You're right." A self-deprecating laugh. "It does sound like me."

She grabbed his arm. "No, listen. I chose it because –"

"I know why you chose it. I'm not angry. This man –" he waved a hand at the iPod. "The man you think I am – the one you made me," he paused, gathering his words. He turned to face her, eyes boring into her own. Desperate, pleading. "The man I am today is who I want to be."

She let out a sob, her hand reaching up to grab hold of the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling his forehead to rest on hers. "You _are_ him."

Rough fingers brushed tentatively across her cheek, mapping the shape of her face, thumb coming to rest on her lip. She waited, eyes closed, heart racing. He laughed quietly.

"What?" she asked, a smile pulling at her own mouth.

"I want to kiss you. But, I'm worried I'll be bad at it." She laughed. He joined her, pulled back a bit.

She smiled at him. "You've been pretty good at going off instinct. Why don't you try that?" He smiled again, surprised and happy, and she decided his smile was her favorite part of him.

He watched her carefully as he leaned in, waiting for her to change her mind. She waited for him, let him set the pace.

His lips brushed hers, soft, gentle at first, testing, exploring, pulling back and diving in again, tasting and giving and learning.

He _was_ good at it.

His teeth closed lightly over her bottom lip and she whimpered softly into the kiss. The sound flipped something in him and his hand that had been resting gently over her own fisted in her hair, pulling her closer, his other curling into the leather of her jacket, pressing their bodies together. Desperate, needy, hungry. She gasped at the feeling of her chest flush against his and he deepened the kiss, tongue searching, mouth slanting, breath panting.

He froze when her hands reached inside of his coat, running up his sides and down his arms as she started to slide it off.

"Dorothy…" He watched her. Uncertain and vulnerable and pleading.

She kissed him again and he let her push the coat off.

The second it hit the ground he was eagerly shoving her own jacket off with a growl, fumbling with the zipper in his haste. She laughed, head thrown back, happy.

"What?" Both laughing now. The zipper finally defeated, her coat joining his.

"Nothing." She unlaced his vest slowly, before letting him remove it. Biting her lip cheekily, toying with the hem of his shirt. "I've just never been with a virgin before."

He scoffed, sounding offended but his tone was mirthful. "I'm not a virgin!" he protested as she pulled his tunic off over his head.

"How would you know? For all you know you were a monk before I met you," she teased. He narrowed his eyes at her.

"Do I look like a monk?" She opened her mouth to reply, words frozen on her tongue as she looked him over. The width of his shoulders, the narrowness of his waist, the strong muscle under soft hair that covered his chest and trailed down below the waistline of his pants. Her fingers itched to check the wound at his side, unable to think of him in pain. She'd seen him before but she hadn't taken the time to look. She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, shaking her head.

He watched her watch him, the mood between them shifting from playful and lighthearted to something heavier, more intimate. He stood, taking her hand to pull her up with him, iPod forgotten in the snow. She waited as he hesitated again, raising a hand and then stopping, looking away.

"I –"

She put a hand on his chest and he looked at it. "Instinct," she reminded him. "I trust you." His eyes snapped to hers. "If you do anything I don't like I'll tell you."

He nodded. She could feel the trust and the longing between them like a physical presence. His fingers found her bare arms, calloused tips making their way slowly to her shoulders. He watched the trail of goosebumps form in their wake. His hands skimmed up her neck, pausing to draw along her collarbone before cupping her face. He leaned down to kiss her again. Not as gently this time. One hand going to her waist, gripping tight and pulling her as close as possible. She stumbled forward into him, arms bracing themselves on his shoulders before wrapping around his neck and pressing every inch of herself against him.

He groaned into her mouth and it sent heat rushing through her. His hands sliding up under her shirt, along her spine, heat and chills blooming at the same time under his touch. He pulled away only long enough to peel her shirt off before his lips were on her neck, trailing from behind her ear to her shoulder to down her chest. She let her head fall back, giving him better access as she pulled his head closer, down, hinting not so subtly. She felt his smirk in the scratch of his bead against her skin. His hand slid up from where it had been gripping the waist of her pants – grinding her into him softly – to cup her breast. Shoving the material out of his way he watched as the peak hardened under the ministrations of his thumb. She moaned, arching into him and he snapped his gaze to hers, watching her face as he repeated the action. She trembled before getting to work, her hands going for the laces of his pants. She needed to get his damn pants off and it was becoming increasingly hard to do with his tongue running along the shell of her ear and his other hand having found her other breast.

She felt a thrill go through her when she managed to slide her hand inside the laces and his whole body rocked into her touch. He let out a desperate sound somewhere between a plea and a curse and she took pity, releasing him and reaching back to remove her bra. He stared mesmerized as she let it drop to the ground and reached for the button of her jeans. Their remaining clothes out of the way, he took her hand and led her down into his lap, sitting on the earth and the warm snow, her legs on either side of his. He gazed up at her as if she were something deserving of awe, running his hand along the contours of her face and down her neck and shoulder before leaning down to press a kiss to each of her breasts.

She pulled his head up to meet her lips, this time letting herself be the one to discover and lean and devour. He let out an approving growl from deep in his chest that she felt in her own. His hands explored her back as her lips and teeth explored his neck. When she bit into the spot where his neck met his shoulder his hands found their way to her ass, squeezing and pulling her into him in a slow, wrecked grind. Twin sobs filled the air, his muffled against her neck, hers voiced in a silent 'please'.

He nodded, taking himself in hand as she rose up on her knees above him, lining himself up before she sank back down, the air leaving both of their bodies, replaced by heat and want and _need._ His eyes didn't leave hers as they moved together, both giving and taking and feeling and touching. Nails scratching, backs arching, fingers gripping slick skin and voices calling out as the heat and the pleasure built higher and higher until they crashed together in bliss and warmth and love.

She breathed, forehead pressed against his, basking in the afterglow, happy to stay in the safe little temporary world they'd created for themselves. Later there would be questions to answer, conversations to be hand, truths to be discovered. But in this moment none of that mattered. Maybe neither of them knew who they were but right now, holding one another under the warmth of the falling snow, they knew each other.


End file.
